Search engine for the full text and descriptions of every Calvin and Hobbes script

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The Calvin & Hobbes Search Engine performs pretty much as you'd expect: it's a search engine that runs against the full text and descriptions of all the Calvin and Hobbes strips. For example, a search for "snowman" returns,

Mom is sitting at the table when Calvin walks by dressed in his coat and hat. Puzzled, Mom goes upstairs and opens the bedroom door. There, she finds Calvin has opened the window letting snow into the room. Calvin is working on a snowman. Mom just covers her face.

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‘bing’ appears to be the developer’s nickname, rather than a reference to the microsoft search tool. With respect to your specific example, the searches are dependent on the source it’s searching — the script text is mostly based only on the words spoken by the the characters. Try a less specific string. e.g. if you search for ‘swift kick’ it will return your result, as this is captured in the description of that strip. So — fault whoever typed in the description, not the developer.

Most people may not remember specific lines, but identify with images since cartoons are an image-based medium; e.g. a box with “Swift kick in the butt” is perhaps a more memorable sight gag than the specific lines.

Even those keywords in the entered text should have triggered some result. “Swift kick in the butt” is not a very overused phrase among C&H strips.

The word “transmogrifier” does apparently produce strips even though the word does not appear in the dialogue but does appear on the box.

It appears to be inconsistent. A search engine (or the description typists) should not penalize for good recall.

Every comic strip, especially web comics, should have a search engine like this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to find a specific strips for something like Penny Arcade and searching their archives with specific phrases from the script doesn’t work.

I know Dinosaur Comics (qwantz.com) adds a plain-text version for every comic, which allows them to be searched and indexed by the comic search engine ohnorobot.com. It seems as if some folks are trying to make all web comics follow this pattern, which I think is great.

I guess the “script” is what the characters say to each other, like in a play. So you’re mostly searching the script, although since there’s some descriptive text that gets searched as well, you’re also searching the strip.